IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: Category 5 Super Typhoon Yutu slams into Mariana Islands and other U.S. territories; 2018 hurricane season now the most powerful ever recorded; New York sues ExxonMobil for defrauding investors about climate change; US Supreme Court stays landmark kids' climate liability lawsuit; PLUS: Canada places a price on pollution with a national carbon tax... All that and more in today's Green News Report!

IN 'GREEN NEWS EXTRA' (see links below): A Green New Deal is on the ballot in Washington state this year; Yes, ExxonMobil and Chevron are still distorting climate science; Three campaign ads that put climate change on the agenda; Austin, Texas, issues citywide boil-water notice after historic flooding; Trump threatens CA funding over 'ridiculous' wildfires; Report: More than 500,000 US households had water cut off; New report says world must boost efforts to suck carbon dioxide from the air; Ban entire pesticide class to protect children's health, experts say; European parliament approves sweeping ban on single-use plastics... PLUS: How scientists cracked the climate change case... and much, MUCH more! ...

The extreme strike occurred with little warning, as the storm strengthened from Category 1 to Category 5 in just a day's time before landfall. The maximum sustained wind speed increased by 80 mph over that time, resulting in a storm with gusts exceeding 200 mph. Scientists have recently suggested that such dangerous "rapid intensification" events, which also happened with hurricanes Michael and Florence, may become more common as the planet warms and the oceans heat up, providing additional fuel for storms.

"This record is especially astounding in the absence of a strong El Niño," to warm up Eastern Pacific waters..."Storms are intensifying at a much more rapid pace than they used to 25 years back," explained the author of a 2012 study on hurricane intensification trends. "They are getting stronger more quickly and also [to a] higher category. The intensity as well as the rate of intensity is increasing."

When all the hurricanes and tropical storms that have formed in the Atlantic and eastern Pacific Oceans this year are added together, the 2018 hurricane season is the most active season ever recorded...To determine the strength of a given season, scientists use the "Accumulated Cyclone Energy" (ACE) index, which adds together the intensity and duration of all the tropical storms and hurricanes that formed. So far in 2018, the ACE for the Atlantic and eastern Pacific seasons together is 432 units of energy, shattering the record of 371, which was set in 1992, Klotzbach said..."We've already had 34.5 major hurricane days this year, which shatters the old record of 24 major hurricane days set in 2015," Klotzbach said.

Scientists are concerned about what will happen to the hundreds of endangered species that once called East Island home... "I had a holy shit moment, thinking 'Oh my God, it's gone,'" said Chip Fletcher, a University of Hawaii climate scientist. "It's one more chink in the wall of the network of ecosystem diversity on this planet that is being dismantled."

Despite its size, the island played an important role for wildlife, including the critically endangered Hawaiian monk seal, a species that numbers just 1,400 individuals, with many of the seals raising their young on East Island. Green sea turtles, which are also threatened, and seabirds such as albatrosses, which often had their young preyed upon by circling tiger sharks, also depended on the island.

The U.S. has a climate policy, and it asks the Supreme Court to enforce it. That policy is: Donald Trump says there is no such thing as climate change. The rest of us, young and old, need to shut up and burn.

The suit does not charge Exxon with playing a role in creating climate change, though the burning of fossil fuels is a major contributor to human-driven global warming. Rather, it says the company engaged in a "longstanding fraudulent scheme" to deceive investors, analysts and underwriters "concerning the company's management of the risks posed to its business by climate change regulation."

The New York lawsuit accuses ExxonMobil of assuring its investors that it was using theoretical prices for carbon in evaluating projects --- from $20 to $80 a ton depending on the country --- when in fact it often used a lower price or none at all.

To stabilize global temperature, net carbon dioxide emissions must be reduced to zero. The window of time is rapidly closing to reduce emissions and limit warming to no more than 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit or 2 degrees Celsius above preindustrial levels, the goal set in the Paris climate accord. The further we push the climate system beyond historical conditions, the greater the risks of potentially unforeseen and even catastrophic changes to the climate - so every reduction in emissions helps.

Clean-energy enthusiasts frequently claim that we can go bigger, that it's possible for the whole world to run on renewables - we merely lack the "political will." So, is it true? Do we know how get to an all-renewables system? Not yet. Not really.